


Linear Optimisation

by notbeloved07



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bruce-isn't-a-good-morality-chain, Cuddling, Fluff, M/M, Slightly!Dark!Tony, World Domination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 20:18:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1198254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notbeloved07/pseuds/notbeloved07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fluff, post-coital cuddling, and casual plans to take over the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Linear Optimisation

**Author's Note:**

> I initially wrote most of this for a fluffy piece a while ago, but it turned out too dark. Recently I came across [this prompt](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/18271.html?thread=42198111#t42198111) asking for dark!Tony who was energetic, grandiose, impulsive, and reckless, and realised it fit, so I decided to fix it up and post it.

There were many things Bruce might have expected after falling into Tony’s bed, but cuddling was not one of them. Bruce was a cuddling man himself, so the first time Tony kissed him, he was already putting together Plan Echo 12 for getting Tony onboard with his ideas of post-coital intimacy. It turned out to be a waste, though, because by the time he came down from his orgasm, Tony’s limbs were wrapped tightly around him, his head tucked against Bruce’s neck.

“You’re amazing,” Tony whispered, carding his fingers through Bruce’s hair. “I would give the world for you.”

Bruce chuckled. “I don’t need to be wooed, Tony.”

Bruce could feel Tony’s pout. “It was merely a statement of fact.”

Bruce hummed and turned to kiss Tony lightly on the nose.

“You should stay,” Tony continued. “Don’t go haring off to Yemen. You could do so much more good here.”

“Like what? Warming your bed?”

Tony rolled his eyes.

Bruce chuckled. “Yeah, I know. Peak oil, clean energy, all that. But we’re pretty much done making arc reactor tech economically viable. The rest is marketing, and what use could I be there?”

“Are you kidding? We could provide viable cures for malaria and HIV. Make universal health care work. End world hunger. Restructure society so that everyone gets a good, serious education. Probably end domestic abuse, too.”

“How would you go about doing... any of that?”

“How would _we_. I’ve seen your notes. I know you’re working on a cure for both malaria and HIV.”

“The real time gene therapy calculations? Those were just doodles to keep my fingers busy. Wishful thinking, if you will. You can’t seriously think we could implement any of that?”

Bruce furrowed his brow when Tony didn’t say anything. “You are being serious. How would you do that? The legal barriers, the popular fear of anything related to embryonic stem cells or gene altering, the animal testing phase...”

“Well, I’m glad you asked. First, just as oil prices start choking people out, we pull out cheap, efficient clean energy, and are immediately regarded as the saviours of the country.”

“People don’t always see what’s good for them.”

“Obviously. The fossil fuel industry will try to run smear campaigns, so it’s a good thing I’ve been fighting media battles since I learned to talk. And they’ll be going out of business, while I’ll be richer than ever, so it won’t even be a contest.”

“The next step,” Tony continued, “is we slowly buy out all stem-cell research patents. Shouldn’t be difficult--I could probably do it now.”

“The main obstacle to stem-cell research isn’t the patents.”

“And that’s where SI’s team of lawyers come in. We start pushing for across the board legalisation of stem-cell research. Given the number of Congressmen who would eat out of my hand, well, that could be done in days.”

“Hm,” Bruce frowned. “Touchy subject in America. It’ll detract from your image to go around flagrantly changing laws. It might be easier to move the operation offshore. With the whole clean energy thing, you’ll be a hero in most of Europe, too. Sweden has some pretty lax medical research regulations. I mean, so does Iran, but I’d bet all the oil countries would be hating you by then.”

“Good point. Sweden it is.”

“You’d still have to make minor changes to the law. I think they have a fifteen day limit on human embryo testing.”

“That’ll be easy. Swedish politicians are as human as any others. So once we have that sorted, you can whip out those cures for malaria and HIV.”

“That would take years if I’m just working alone in Sweden.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Seriously? You wouldn’t be alone. For a chance to work on cutting edge research with us, I could probably get top researchers for free. But I wouldn’t; I’d double all their previous salaries.”

“In that case I could probably have an economically viable cure for malaria out in a year. HIV in under three.”

“Exactly. Problem one solved.”

“What about the rest? World hunger? Education?”

“Yeah, well, those will take a little more finesse. But HIV and malaria aren’t the only things in your notes, are they?”

“Tony, the other ones _really_ weren’t meant to be executed.

“Right. Wishful thinking, you said? So you wish. And I’ve always said that all you needed to do was wish. Now, what were those things you’d written? Vitamin-enriched, flood resistant crops? Cheap, easy water filtration systems? Resistance to cancer?”

“The last one was just a fantasy.”

“You already fully understand the mechanisms--all that remains is computation.”

“Computation far beyond our reach--”

“For now, sure. But we’d have the world’s best researchers, unlimited resources, and by that point we’d have doubled Sweden’s economy, they’d be stupid to try to block us politically or illegalise our experimental methods.”

“Everyone would want to move there if we actually released all those things.”

“Yep, and they’ve always welcomed immigrants. They might have to change that policy once we start administering things like cancer resistance therapies for free in Swedish clinics.”

“You’d let the rest of the world have it too, wouldn’t you?”

Tony shrugs. “Eventually, we’d have to. I think drug patents only last eight or nine years around there? Though I could probably change that law if--”

“I don’t think that would be necessary.”

“Yeah, that would probably be the opposite of making the world a better place. Or, maybe not. I mean, if it gives us more clout, and we’re actively making the world better...”

“What about hunger, Tony?” Bruce said, attempting to derail that train of thought. “You can’t just cure hunger.”

“The flood resistant, nutrient enriched crops would make a dent.”

“Total supply was never the problem. There’s more than enough food to--”

“The rest is just a resource allocation problem that boils down to linear optimisation.”

“Yeah, if you’re like, God, or something.”

“Bruce, we’d control both the energy industry and the pharma industry at that point, and be paying consulting fees to high-ranking officials in most governments in the world. And we'd have bought out the media. In what sense would we not have the resources to treat the problem like the linear optimisation it is?”

Bruce shifted against Tony. “Point. And I suppose education can be crowd-sourced if you’re rich enough. Lectures are already pretty much free on the internet.The bottle-neck is grading and feedback, but if you set the system up well and incentivize properly, there are plenty of well-educated people who’d be happy to make money grading.”

“Exactly. The unemployment rates amongst college grads is through the roof in some places, so with the sort of money we’d be throwing around and the amount of HCI talent I have on payroll, our education system would take like days to code up, maybe a few months to market…”

“Even if you bought out everyone in Sweden, other governments wouldn’t be too happy with how influential you’d be,” Bruce objected.

“ _We’d_ be,” Tony corrected.

“They’d paint us as power-hungry megalomaniacs or something and send in the military.”

“How’s that shield working out for you?” Tony asked.

“What?”

“The electro-magnetic shield you’re making to, I dunno, protect people from the Hulk or whatever ridiculous notion it is you’ve got in your head.”

“I didn’t know you knew about that.”

“I don’t like it when you make weapons against yourself. But if you could use it to protect yourself, or us, in this case, well. My point is, hook it up to an arc reactor, and if it scales properly, it could cover the space of a city, maybe even a country. So let those militaries come at us.”

“The shield was meant for the Hulk.”

“Who’s a heck of a lot more powerful than most conventional weapons.”

“And if they go nuclear?”

“Think they’d go nuclear against civilians?”

Bruce cast Tony a look that efficiently conveyed _are you serious_ and _have you forgotten that time they tried to fucking nuke Manhattan?_

“Yeah, okay,” Tony conceded. “But your shield is just a prototype. And nobody knows weapons like I do. Did you know I made this sonic device once that could paralyse people for like twenty minutes with no side effects? Hook it up to a high quality megaphone, and, well... Besides, if push comes to shove, we could always let JARVIS stretch his legs a bit. Mop up.”

“You’d go toe to toe with every world government?”

“I wouldn’t have to. We’d own the media by then, and use it to get the popular support. They’d know not to go up against us. But if they did anyway, then yes, I would. Because for you, Bruce? Anything.”

“Still seems like a long shot. Even with SHIELD on our side,” Bruce sighed.

“You think SHIELD would take our side?”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “Of course. They know we’re the only people who understands the spaghetti code you wrote to--”

“That was _not_ spaghetti code. I have never written a single program I could not fully understand at a glance, even when I’m both drunk and high!”

“If the only people who understand it also revolutionized two branches of science each, and one of them watched the other write it, it’s spaghetti code.”

“I love it when you acknowledge how brilliant you are,” Tony grinned.

Bruce smiled indulgently back at him. “But yeah, SHIELD would take your side. From Fury’s perspective, he can either throw his lot in with the technologically backwards old world and face utter humiliation as you jerk his helicarrier around like a wanton puppet, or he could embrace the way of the future and be seen as the hero who saved the peace-loving new world.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Tony smiled.

“You seem to have put a lot of thought into these plans.”

“I did say I’d give the world for you. That would hardly work if it weren’t mine to give.”

“You know, I had never considered that phrase terrifying before?”

“You still don’t.”

“I still don’t.” And it was true, because for better or for worse, Bruce trusted Tony. With himself, with the Hulk, with the world. And wasn’t that quite the thought.


End file.
